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THE PLACE OF JACKSONVILLE, ILLINOIS, IN 
THE HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST 



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IReprmted from the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. VII] 



THE PLACE OF JACKSONVILLE, ILLINOIS, IN 
THE HISTOEY OF THE NORTHWEST 

By Ensley Mooee 

The State of Illinois was admitted to the Union in 
1818. Morgan County received its first settlers in 1818, 
and was organized on the first Monday in March, 1823. 
Jacksonville, the county seat of Morgan County, which 
then included Cass and Scott counties, was laid out on 
March 10, 1825. This last act was, as I shall show, one 
of the most important in its influence upon the history of 
the coming State and of the great Northwest. And by 
Northwest is meant the region north and west of Illinois 
to the Canadian line and to the Rocky Mountains first, 
and ultimately to the Pacific Ocean. 

The largest early immigration into Illinois and into 
the Sangamon Country, in which Jacksonville was lo- 
cated, was from the Southern States — notably Kentucky, 
Tennessee, and Virginia ; and of the brightest, ablest, and 
most ambitious of these alert Americans, Jacksonville re- 
ceived its full share, its settlers being largely from the 
South. 

Joseph Duncan, from Kentucky, a hero of the War of 
1812, and John J. Hardin, also from Kentucky, were two 
of the most prominent upbuilders of Illinois, of Jackson- 
ville, and of the regions beyond to the north and west. 
Both were subsequently members of Congress, and the 
latter was afterward Governor of Illinois. Hardin 
"gloriously fell on the field of Buena Vista, Mexico", 
along with his relatives. Colonels Clay and McKee. 

In 1825 Jacksonville was like Jerusalem, ''Beautiful 
for situation", and so it yet remains. Its greatest orna- 



JACKSONVILLE AND THE NORTHWEST 267 

ment, Illinois College, crowns a hill wliicli commands a 
magnificent view. 

But the Yankee, by which is meant a person from 
east of the Hudson, or of that ancestry in New York, was 
not slow in seeing the advantages of Jacksonville, or in 
helping to improve them. In fact two Kellogg brothers, 
''New York Yankees", were the first settlers of Morgan 
County. Then it was a race between natives of the South 
and of New England. The result was that, up to the 
time of the Civil War, Jacksonville was about half South- 
ern and half Yankee. The New Englanders were also of 
the ablest, brightest, and most ambitious of their section ; 
and the battle for the development of a place of potential 
influence was on. 

Our ''ancient history" records that Murray McCon- 
nell ' ' passed up the Illinois river to Peoria in 1819 ' '. He 
soon returned to what was to be Morgan County, near 
Jacksonville, and took part as a law;>^er in the first meet- 
ing of the Circuit Court in Morgan County. Mr. McCon- 

^ nell was born in Orange County, New York, on September 
5, 1798, and at the age of fourteen started into the far 
West to make his fortune. 

John Millot Ellis was bom in Kene, New Hamp- 
shire, on July 14, 1793, of Welsh parentage. Mr. Ellis 
was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1822. On the 
day on which he completed his seminary course, he was 
inspired by Elias Cornelius, an educator of that day, to 
"build up an institution of learning which should bless 
the West for all time." Mr. Ellis was graduated from 
Andover in September, 1825, and in November of that 
year,' after a journey of six weeks, he reached Kaskaskia, 
then the capital of Illinois and the most important town. 
"Mr. Ellis was of that type of mind and from that stock 
of mankind with whom it is an instinct to build colleges", 
and he was soon interested in plans for the establishment 

of what was then called a "Seminary" in Illinois. 



268 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 

Mr. Ellis had become a member of the Presbytery 
of Missouri, which then included Illinois. St. Louis was 
at that time the largest town near the settled part of 
Illinois. Few people had then settled north of the pres- 
ent line of the Wabash Railway. Mr. Ellis secured the 
appointment of a committee of Presbytery, consisting 
of himself and Elder Thos. Lippincott, afterwards a 
Presbyterian minister for many years. In January, 1828, 
they set out on a journey of investigation into the Sanga- 
mon Country. Shoal Creek people, near Alton, had al- 
ready made offers for an institution. 

The explorers continued until they came to Jackson- 
ville. At this point "so charming was the landscape, so 
rich the soil around and so enterprising the people who 
had settled there, that Mr. Ellis appears to have con- 
cluded at once that this was the place for a Seminary in 
preference to other towns he visited. Within a few days 
with characteristic promptitude he purchased eighty 
acres of land and set the stakes for a building". Some 
money had already been subscribed, and the subscribers 
approved of the plans. Mr. Ellis then determined to 
move to Jacksonville in the summer of 1828. 

Mr. Ellis was at that time in the employ of the Amer- 
ican Home Missionary Society, to which he wrote, in a re- 
port under date of September 25, 1828 : 

A Seminary of learning is projected to go into operation 
next Fall. The subscription now stands at $2,000 or $3,000. 
The site is in this county. The half quarter section purchased 
for it is certainly the most delightful spot I have ever seen. It 
is about one mile north of the celebrated Diamond Grove, and 
overlooks the town and country for several miles around. The 
object of the Seminary is popular, and it is my deliberate opinion 
that there never was in our country a more promising oppor- 
tunity to bestow a few thousand dollars in the cause of education 
and of missions. 

The Presbytery Reporter, of Alton, in September, 
1859, gives the following account : 



JACKSONVILLE AND THE NORTHWEST 269 

Of this letter, as published in the Home Missionary, Presi- 
dent Sturtevant says that it arrested the attention of the young 
men in the Divinity School at Yale College, and led to a cor- 
respondence between them and Mr, Ellis, and determined seven 
of them to a residence in Illinois and to aid in the building up of 
the College. 

Having been sent to a meeting of the General As- 
sembly, Mr. Ellis spent the summer of 1829 in the East, 
While there, he cooperated with this Yale Band in their 
efforts to raise ten thousand dollars which they had 
pledged, and was instrumental in the maturing of their 
plans. Two of them, Julian M. Sturtevant and Theoron 
Baldwin, arrived in Jacksonville in November, 1829, and 
instruction was begun by Mr. Sturtevant, on January 4, 
1830, in what is now a part of Beecher Hall. The institu- 
tion had been organized and named Illinois College, on 
motion of Judge Hall, an old settler and a trustee. Thus 
was founded the first great college west of Ohio. 

It should be said that Mr. Ellis went on to help found 
Wabash College, Indiana. He also aided Marshall Col- 
lege, Michigan. After spending some time in the East 
in preaching, Mr. Ellis died at Nashua, New Hampshire, 
on August 6, 1855. At the time of his death he was en- 
gaged in arranging for a college in Nebraska. 

The first class was graduated from Illinois College in 
1835, and consisted of Jonathan E. Spilman and Richard 
Yates. The latter was to be the great War Governor of 
Illinois. At one time when plans to help the Union cause 
were under discussion, Lincoln said to his Cabinet: '*I 
have a plan to open the Mississippi river by a man named 
Grant, which Dick Yates sent me." You may recall that 
'*a man named Grant" did open the Mississippi River, 
and by that time Richard Yates had sent Lincoln — not 
Grant's plan alone — but Grant himself. For it was this 
Kentucky boy, trained in Illinois College, who sent Ulys- 
ses S. Grant into the nation's service. After three long 



270 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 

years of war "Dick" Yates's selection took command of 
all the armies and victory canie in one short year. The 
Eepublic was saved not alone to the West and Northwest, 
but to all the American people, and to all mankind. Lin- 
coln knew Yates's fidelity, and he did not trust him in 
vain. 

Illinois College gave to the West scores of ministers 
who went out to preach "the unsearchable riches of 
Christ Jesus". Neither Time nor Eternity can measure 
the yield to these reapers in the "fields white to the har- 
vest". These men not only gave their lives to saving 
souls in their homeland, but some went as foreign mis- 
sionaries, and at least one died upon the hot shores of 
the "Dark Continent". Illinois College also gave to her 
own State and to some of the Northwest the first physi- 
cians educated in their profession within the State. 

It was in the class of 184-3 that Newton Bateman 
was graduated. He was destined to be the Nestor of 
teachers in the State, which in turn gave of her abundance 
to "the regions lying beyond". Young men and young 
women sprang full panoplied into the race of life edu- 
cated for the work. It was not to the State alone that 
Bateman gave of his ripest j^ears, though he made Knox 
College a power in the education of the young people of 
the Northwest. And still earlier than Bateman, Dr. Wm. 
S. Curtis was prepared for the presidency of Knox Col- 
lege by "Old Illinois". 

In the winter of 1832-1833, President Edward 
Beecher of Illinois College wrote to President Day of 
Yale, requesting him to send a teacher whom he could 
recommend as a future professor. Mr. Day said that 
Jonathan B. Turner was the man, and "Prof. Turner", 
of "Yale, '33", entered into his labors at Illinois College 
that year. If Jonathan B. Turner had only given his 
devotion to learning and his unyielding opposition to hu- 



JACKSONVILLE AND THE NORTHWEST 271 

man slavery to the West, it would have been enough. But 
he discovered the practical use of the osage orange plant 
and hedged the fields of the West with thousands of miles 
of fencing. But ''the grand old man" was not content 
with this material contribution to the riches of the West. 
It was he who through long years of unsuccessful effort 
kept toiling and speaking and writing until at last the 
States and nation heard his voice, and the Agricultural 
College — now called the State University — was created. 
To-day all the Northwest, as well as the country at large, 
may thank Illinois College for bringing Jonathan B. 
Turner into the West, and sending him out to better man- 
kind by the establishment of universities in every State. 
Out in the cemetery, in "the celebrated Diamond Grove" 
of Mr. Ellis's day, lie the remains of this American giant 
who toiled for the millions, and "Turner" is all the name 
needed to mark the spot. 

Women had small chance for education in this region 
before 1825, but a new day dawned for the women of the 
West when Frances Brard Ellis, wife of John M. Ellis, 
began in her own humble home the work of teaching girls 
and young women. Through her efforts there was or- 
ganized in 1830 and chartered in 1835 the Jacksonville 
Female Academy, the first such institution in Illinois. 
For this woman's school not only the State of Illinois but 
the West as well must ever be grateful. Tragic beyond 
words was the death of Mrs. Ellis and her two children 
in that "cholera year" of 1833. All three died within 
forty-eight hours of each other. 

Dr. Truman 0. Douglass, a graduate of Illinois Col- 
lege in 1865, and Secretary, of the Congregational Home 
Missionary work in Iowa from 1882 to 1907, wrote a book 
a few years ago entitled "Pilgrims of Iowa", in which he 
refers to his denominational brethren. It is to be re- 
membered that it was through Mr. Ellis's correspondence 



272 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 

that the Yale Band of Illinois came out to the West. 
Among them was Asa Turner, brother of Professor J. B. 
Turner, who went first to Quincy, Illinois. 

From Douglass 's book we have the following : " ' One 
event', says Mr. Turner in his autobiography, 'occurred 
that decided my future life. A band of students was 
formed for the purpose of going to Illinois and planting 
the institutions of learning and the gospel. I was invited 
to join them. I did so. J. M. Ellis, who had been sent 
by the American Home Missionary Society, was trying to 
plant an institution in Jacksonville. Correspondence 
with him led us to unite our efforts with his. The result 
was Illinois College. This shaped the whole course of my 
life after. The last year in the Seminary was taken up in 
this effort, and especially in raising means to plant the 
college'." December 1, 1830, found Mr. Turner minister- 
ing to a church in Quincy, Illinois. As early as 1836 he 
began prospecting in Iowa, and in 1838 he became pastor 
of the church at Denmark, Iowa, where he continued for 
thirty years. 

Reuben G-aylord came as a tutor to Illinois College 
in 1834, and remained for two and a half years. He, with 
six others at Yale, undertook to organize a Yale Band for 
Iowa. Although his efforts were in vain Gaylord came 
alone. Gaylord and Turner were the first Congrega- 
tional ministers who settled in Iowa. Douglass calls 
these men ''Patriarchs" in the church in Iowa. He 
speaks of Julius A. Eeed as the third of these, and says 
that "he got his first taste of the West in a visit to his 
brother, Dr. M. N. Reed, of Jacksonville, Illinois". And 
so the good work went on and Jacksonville did service for 
Iowa as well as for Illinois. 

The influence of good and great ministers is beyond 
estimate. Illinois College drew to Jacksonville and edu- 
cated a young Tennessean named Robert W. Patterson. 
He was graduated in 1837, became a Presbyterian clergy- 



JACKSONVILLE AND THE NORTHWEST 273 

man, and as pastor of the Second Church of that denom- 
ination in Chicago spent most of a long and influential 
life. Another young man, who was drawn to Jackson- 
ville by its religious and educational attractions, was the 
Eev. Truman M. Post, a member of the Faculty for years, 
and for a still longer period a Congregational pastor in 
St. Louis. These were men of influence and power in 
their day. 

Jacksonville had in its early citizenship men of fine 
business foresight and of great commercial activity and 
capability. Through them was brought about an era of 
material achievement in the West during the early part 
of the nineteenth century. They secured or assisted in 
the building of the first railroad north of the Ohio River 
and west of Pennsylvania. It was on November 8, 1838, 
that the first engine ran upon the ''Northern Cross" 
Railroad, now the Wabash, which was opened to Jackson- 
ville in 1839 and to Springfield in 1842. This was the 
beginning of the railway construction of that portion of 
the West which lay north of the Ohio River, and it was 
the means of opening the farther West to settlement and 
occupation. Chicago had no western railroad until 1849. 

Returning to the subject of public education. Gov- 
ernor Joseph Duncan was one of the earliest advocates 
of this beneficent work. A volume entitled Common 
School Advocate was published in Jacksonville at an early 
date. This was one of the first such papers in the West, 
if not the first. It was published by Ensley T. and Cal- 
vin Goudy. The inspiration of Jacksonville always in- 
fluenced the Goudys. William C. and Calvin Goudy, one 
as State Senator and the other as member of the Lower 
House, were among the most influential in securing the 
establishment of the State Normal University. 

The men and women of Jacksonville were among the 
earliest in the West to establish State charitable institu- 
tions, and those for the insane, deaf and dumb, and the 



274 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 

blind were among their early accomplishments. The 
School for the Deaf was in fact a training school for the 
teachers and superintendents of other Western and 
Northwestern States. 

When Abraham Lincoln appointed the first Governor 
of Dakota, which then included both North and South Da- 
kota, he chose Dr. WiUiam Jayne, a graduate of Illinois 
College in 1847. In this capacity, Governor Jayne ruled 
over about four thousand whites and thirty thousand In- 
dians. I am happy to say that the genial old man is still 
living in Springfield. 

Citizens of Jacksonville, former students and gradu- 
ates of Illinois College, and of the women's schools of 
Jacksonville, who have gone into the West and Northwest 
as teachers, are to be numbered by the scores if not by 
the hundreds. Without effort I call to mind a classmate, 
Professor R. H. Beggs, in Denver ; and another. Professor 
Carl Gordon, in Spokane. Oakland, California, has a 
leading teacher from Illinois, and the State University 
of California has in its faculty a graduate of ''Old Il- 
linois ' '. 

** Murray McConnell passed up the Illinois in 1819", 
and afterward became a leading citizen of Jacksonville. 
He was a member of the legislature, a leading lawyer, a 
commissioner in building the first railroad which ''blazed 
the track of empire westward", a general of militia, and 
an Auditor of the United States Treasury under Presi- 
dent Pierce. By the help of his vote, Illinois was one of 
the first States to pass the amendment to the Federal 
Constitution abolishing slavery. But, in addition to 
these incidents from the life of General McConnell, he 
accomplished what was of more important and lasting 
effect upon the history of the State, of the Northwest, and 
of the nation. Of this I have written in another connec- 
tion the following account: 

A young man from New York State, but a native of Ver- 



JACKSONVILLE AND THE NORTHWEST 275 

mont, came into Jacksonville in the late fall of 1833. Jackson- 
ville was then the guiding star of ambitious men venturing into 
"the far west". The town had a population of about 1,600 or 
1,700 souls. The population of Morgan County — then including 
Cass and Scott — was about 15,000. The state of Illinois had a 
population of about 300,000. Among these Stephen A. Douglas 
came, too small in size and weight to be noticeable. But, even 
then, strong enough to draw the attention and interest of per- 
sons of perception. 

There have been many stories told since those faraway days 
of the first cholera year, of how and where this young stranger 
went and found friends and a home. But many of the stories 
are apt to have grown with the development of their hero, the 
"Little Giant". 

The first and kindest and wisest friend that stripling from 
Vermont found in Illinois was Murray McConnell. By his ad- 
vice Douglas did the things which eventuated in his becoming 
a citizen of Jacksonville, an organizer of the Democratic party 
in Illinois, a secretary of state of Illinois, a member of the legis- 
lature from Jacksonville, a judge of the Supreme Court of the 
state, a member of Congress, a United States Senator, a controller 
of the national Democratic party, a candidate for President, 
whereby Abraham Lincoln was elected ; and, at last, 

"When war winged its wide desolation, 
And threatened the land to deform ' ', 

Stephen A. Douglas, patriot and statesman, no doubt saved Il- 
linois from Civil War within its own borders, and, next to Abra- 
ham Lincoln and U. S. Grant, probably did more than any one 
else to save the Republic. All this came about in part, through 
the kindly and wise act of Murray McConnell, in befriending a 
poor young man " in a strange land ' '. 

Time and space forbid a longer reference to the 
splendid things which have resulted from the influence of 
Jacksonville and of Illinois College. But one can not re- 
frain from calling the attention of this Association to the 
fact that it was Stephen A. Douglas who valiantly stood 
against the surrender of our great Northwest, now styled 



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276 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL AS llilllllill|||((I|||||||||||||^ 

016 097 773 5 
''The Inland Empire", and the lands beside tlie lar 

Pacific to the land-grabbing instinct and clutch of Great 
Britain. It was Stephen A. Douglas who saw the possi- 
bilities of the great Middle West, and carved out the Ter- 
ritories of Kansas and Nebraska, the latter including 
what is to-day North and South Dakota. 

So the humble Christian minister, the ambitious 
college teacher, and the more ambitious young politician, 
each contributed a portion of that influence which made 
Jacksonville largely the Civilizer of the West. 



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